Saddam Hussein used Oliver Reed and a James Bond director to tell Iraq’s story – but who tells it now?

From the beginning of his brutal reign in Iraq, Saddam Hussein could claim an unusual credit: film producer. After Saddam became president in 1979, his cousin played him in The Long Days. The film dramatised his role in a failed 1959 attempt to assassinate Iraq’s then-prime minister, Abdul-Karim Qasim.

The film presented the new dictator as a hero. A few minutes in, a young Saddam calmly removes a bullet from his leg using a razor blade sterilised with fire. In his 2000 biography of Saddam, journalist Saïd Aburish called…

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